As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to these users is an information handling system. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may vary with respect to the type of information handled; the methods for handling the information; the methods for processing, storing or communicating the information; the amount of information processed, stored, or communicated; and the speed and efficiency with which the information is processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include or comprise a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
An information handling system, such as a computer system, may be coupled to a network that allows for the remote boot of the computer system. A network boot of a computer system involves a boot of the computer system from a boot image on a network. The boot image is downloaded from the network to the computer system, where the boot image is executed by the processor of the computer system and the computer system is initiated. Existing processes and protocols for performing a network boot may compromise the security of the computer system or the network and may exceptionally complex.
As one example, the Preboot eXecution Environment (PXE) protocol does not encrypt the entire remote boot process. PXE also involves a complex configuration management scheme in which a user who implements a remote boot server must carefully implement a directory structure at the remote boot server to insure that the correct boot images are delivered to the client computer. In addition, because PXE involves the mapping of client computers to boot images by the MAC address of the client computer, the security of the client computer and network could be compromised. As another example, the Internet SCSI (iSCSI) network protocol does not provide for encryption of the boot process, and this drawback is especially apparent when the iSCSI protocol is operating in transport mode. The Internet iSCSI protocol is also complicated and does not readily support the mapping of boot images to multiple clients having a common logical unit (LUN) or the dynamic mapping of clients. Overcoming the lack of secure boot protocols often involves proprietary security tools, which themselves often suffer from vendor and version dependencies, creating the risk of legacy systems that are problematic and not scalable.